Come Support Briana Waters - She Testifies Wednesday
author: Civil Rights Outreach Committee
e-mail:civilrightsoutreach@gmail.com

Briana Waters is expected to take the stand in her own defense as early as Wednesday, February 27, in Tacoma's federal courthouse (1717 Pacific Ave.). Ms. Waters is on trial for allegedly acting as a lookout during the arson of the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture in 2001. Ms. Waters, a 32-year-old mother and violin teacher, steadfastly maintains her innocence. Civil Rights Outreach Committee

If convicted, Waters faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 35 years in prison. This trial is another chapter in the federal government's "Operation Backfire," also dubbed the "Green Scare," in which the government has hounded the environmental activist community, overcharged a number of individuals, and branded them as terrorists, even though none of the events resulted in a single injury.

The prosecution rested its case against Ms. Waters on Friday, February 22, after two weeks. The government's case is not based upon any concrete or forensic evidence, but instead almost entirely relied on the testimony of two informants who confessed to setting the University of Washington fire and who will receive vastly reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony.

The defense began presenting its case on Monday, February 25, and is expected to conclude by the end of the week. The defense impeached several of the government's witnesses, including the informants, by demonstrating that their accounts are inconsistent and unreliable. "Several witnesses were clearly testifying in order to reduce or eliminate the government's threat of their own lengthy prison sentences," said attorney Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center of Eugene, Oregon.

You are invited to attend the Autism Awareness Rally planned for February 27th, 2008, at noon in the Capitol Rotunda. We are inviting families from around the state to come and share their stories with their legislator and gather together in support of issues that are common to all those living with autism. It would be great to bring your children, if they can tolerate the crowd. We would like to put a Face on Autism.

Legislators and individuals connected with supporting autism issues this legislative session will speak. Currently, 1 out of 150 children are being diagnosed with autism. Often the waiting lists to receive a diagnosis and then appropriate treatment are months long. This is a difficult waiting time for families.

An Autism Spectrum Disorder can have a devastating impact on families affected by it. Several bills supported by the Autism Society of Washington are directed toward easing some of the distress families feel and thus go toward helping to preserve the family unit. Those bills are:

The Present and Future of Economic Justice and Socialism in Latin America

Robin Hahnel, a professor of economics at American University in Washington, D.C., is one of the most thoughtful and insightful political economists in the United States. In the books he has authored and coauthored, Looking Forward, the Political Economy of Participatory Economics and most recently, Economic Justice and Democracy, Robin Hahnel has written in depth about strategy towards and vision of a participatory economics society as a necessary and desirable alternative to capitalism. He has studied the politics and economics of many countries in Latin America, most recently Venezuela in which he visited and gave lectures in the summer 2007.

7 P.M., Orca Books, 509 E. 4th, Olympia

Sponsored by Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace (OMJP), Olympia SDS, Center for Radical Education (CRE)

For more information, contact, Peter Bohmer, bohmerp@evergreen.edu, 867-6431

hey you! come see this show!

fall of electricity (math pop from puget street) the evening episode (electronic georgousness from sacrament, ca) 8:30pm @ the artisan's cafe
109 N Capitol Way

free show! (please bring donations for out of town band or buy on of their albums!)

myspace.com/fallofelectricity
myspace.com/theeveningepisode